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Today we left an hour later than usual to go on a full day game drive. It ended up being a great day for viewing, but it was a LONG day.

We had box lunches from the hotel, and we took a few breaks to stretch, but it was long. Mike was done around 1pm - since I'm more of an animal enthusiast than he is, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but I have to admit that I am completely beat and ready for a nap! Mike is relaxing right now playing Bejewelled on his cell phone - he's been dying for a television since we left Kampala!

The cool things we saw today were huge herds of elephants (the largest herd was probably around 30), including a couple of elephants who false charged us (walked toward us, spread their ears, and made trumpet noises), a large pride of lions (7 or 8 females/young males) who appeared to be ready to take down a Thomson's Gazelle, but instead laid down in the shade, 2 male lions sleeping on a rock, a pool of water full of hippos and crocodiles (I took video of the hippos on our Elph), a leopard's kill stashed in a tree, a 2 day old Thomson gazelle (so cute! they walk after 15 minutes and run after 30...crazy), a lone hippo walking quite close to our vehicle (again...great photos), cute rock hyraxes (a very large rodent) all around the visitor center, Fischer's love birds drinking water, a rock feature that looked EXACTLY like Pride Rock in the Lion King (I took pics, so you can judge), a dominant male impala making very strange warning sounds, and the feature performance of the day....two cheetahs chasing at full speed after some Thomson's gazelles. Unfortunately they didn't get one...lucky for the gazelles though! :)

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but we've seen tons of geckos. They always come out at night and post themselves at the top of every exterior wall to catch unsuspecting bugs. The two we saw in the dining room in Bwindi, Uganda we named Mongo and Pongo, but last night we counted 24 (!) on the way back to our room from eating dinner!

Animals we saw today:
Impala
Warthog
Thomson Gazelle
Elephant (several large herds)
Baboon
Buffalo
DikDik
Giraffe
Hippo (saw tons today...both in and out of water)
Dwarf Mongoose
Waterbuck
Lion (group of 7-8 females/young males, 2 males, 1 female)
Jackel
Hartebeest
Spotted Hyena
Topi
Vervet Monkey
Zebra
Crocodile
Rock Hyrax
Banded Mongoose
Cheetah

Birds:
-White Backed Vulture
-Ostrich
-Guinea Fowl
-Maribou Stork
-Dark Chanting Goshawk
-Lilac Breasted Lola
-Egyptian Goose
-Fischer's Lovebirds
-Red-Cheeked Cordon Bleu